I wanted some crusty, hearty bread to go with my soup. This is the result, let's see how I got there.
I started with the basic hearth bread recipe from The Bread Bible. It starts with a poolsh made from flour, water, and a little yeast. I mixed those ingredients together in the bread machine and let them sit for a little while. Next, I added the rest of the ingredients---mostly flour---and let the machine do its magic.
After the bread machine's two rounds of rising, I put the dough into my dutch oven and stored it in the refrigerator overnight for a final slow rise.
The next day, the bread had about doubled in size, not bad for a refrigerator rise. I baked it with the lid on to keep the bread steaming and crisp up the crust. The result was beautiful and tasted good, too.
I made candied ginger a few years ago. It's not something I would do every day but I had a lot of fun doing it. I recently acquired a pressure cooker and it inspired an interesting idea to me: why not make candied ginger in the pressure cooker? It should be very soft and flavorful. Here is the result. I peeled two large ginger roots, cut them into small cubes, and put them in the pressure cooker with heavily sugared water. The traditional method first boils the ginger in plain water to soften it and then again in sugar water to candy it. The resulting candy was very tender but still with the characteristic ginger texture. It was also sweet without being overpowering. The traditional method leaves a lot of sugar crystallized around the ginger. The pressure cooker gives a much more subtle result. The ginger stays moist even after it cools but you can dry it in the oven at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes. That inspired me to dip it in chocolate. While I was in the b...




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